The Elder Scrolls Online Now Up For Pre-Order, Costs $60

For everyone hoping that The Elder Scrolls Online would be a free-to-play MMO, a pre-order listing for the game on a retailer website has quickly dashed those hopes away.
(PC, The Elder Scrolls Online)

I'll tell you about an observation I made years ago. When Modern Warfare 2 came out on the PC it was $60 and the first game to hit that price point. I knew it was the beginning of the end. Obviously it was successful and other major games followed. Now we're at the point where most games on the PC are $60. Nevermind the fact that the vast majority of them are downloaded with no packaging/cd. That was the old argument on why console games are more expensive. Just another chapter of PC gamers getting effed up the bung hole. BTW, I've never heard of a game being cheaper because it's the downloaded version. Ever. Show me an example.

i noticed the same thing, MW2 was $60 and it kicked off the trend. interestingly, activision only seems to price COD and blizzard games at $60 (not sure if they control blizzard's pricing or not), because I remember seeing other activision games for $50 at launch. of course, after MW2, EA started charging $60 for ALL their PC games. ubisoft tried it, but most recently launched AC revelations at $50. zenimax now does it with most of their stuff (skyrim was the most recent, i believe), and even take two and rockstar are hopping on board by charging $60 for max payne 3. and the main reason console games are more expensive is because of a ~$9 licensing fee that the console manufacturers charge per copy. so it's a very transparent rip-off, it's extra money in the publisher's pocket and they don't even care about trying to hide it.

If there isn't a monthly subscription, then in a sense it still is a free to play mmo. What would be the worst is spending $60 for the game and another $15 a month for the subscription like what DCUO started out as.